Replies

>My assertion is...Without a Judeo-Christian world view, self government is very difficult if not impossible to sustain.

>You ask, how do I define "very difficult" and "impossible". Very difficult means that it will only happen a few times in a hundred tries. Impossible means that it has never been done, and cannot be done. Depending on how you define 'democracy' and 'sustain', it has not been done so far.

so your assertion is based on an unproven test?

>I have already explained how the two examples you give from ancient history do not fit the bill of a nation state with a lasting republican form of government. The vast majority of people under Roman authority, including the half of the population that were female, did not enjoy anything like a representative form of government. It was a broad based oligarchy where the 135 families of the partician class made the decisions until the emperor came along.

and it took close to a century for our government to grant the right to vote to former slaves and women.

>Take all the nations of the world in the last 5,ooo years. Divide them into Judeo-Chrtistian and Other. Then record the number of years each member nation of each group have had a form of government where the majority of the people living in their boundaries were allowed to make policy or select the people who do.

i don't have my almanac handy so bear with me...

'judeo-christian democracies':
Israel
United States
Great Britian
Brazil
Argentina
Mexico
etc... etc...

'Non judeo-christian democracies'
India
Taiwan
Japan
Bosnia
Djibouti
Qatar
Sri Lanka
Turkey
Roman Republic
Greek (Athenian) Democracy
etc... etc...

i'll let you do the work of tallying the number of years each country has had a democratic form of government.
since you're so adamant about your false presumption.
do some research and prove otherwise.

>Your two questionalbe exceptions do not prove my rule false, quite the contrary, they highlight the strength of my position.

ahh, something doesn't fit nicely with your presumption so it is automatically questionable. you can go to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chiefs/ to begin your research. i'd be interested in the results (sincerely)

>To undermine the God of the Bible is to undermine self-government.

tell it to Taiwan, and Bahrain, and Qatar, and Japan, and Djibouti...
...

cheers.

anka

Your list of current 'Non judeo-christian democracies'
India
Taiwan
Japan
Bosnia
Djibouti
Qatar
Sri Lanka
Turkey

Your own source lists Quatar as a TRADITIONAL MONARCHY.

The French Territory of the Afars and the Issas became Djibouti in 1977. A peace accord in 1994 ended a three-year uprising by Afars rebels. Hardly an example of "sustained self-government". And what self-government they had was likely a result of their experience with France.

Bosnia is NOT an example of sustained self governemnt, even if it is half orthodox Christian. It is a UN created and sustained unnatural act.

Tawain has only been around since 1950, and has endured one party rule until three years ago.

Sri Lanka was granted independence by the Brits in about 1950. Despite the advantage of being a colony of a great government, it has been locked in an ethnic civil war ever since.

Turkey has a defacto oligarchy (the military) that overturns decisions when the voters 'decide wrong'. They have been around 70 years. Let's see how they are doing in seven more, if the Islamacists that won the last election continue to get their way.

Japan and India are the only two half-decent examples on your list. They would be a lot more impressive if both had not inherited their goverments less than 60 years ago from the Christian nations that ruled them. Japan is already a basketcase as government-business cronyism has destroyed their once powerful economy.

The idea that you have these absurd examples to counter Great Britain, France, Italy, Israel, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, the USA, Brazil, etc... shows how wildly wrong you are.